by Jeremy Bates
Guru’s expression was a mask of studious disbelief. “Even if this is true, professor, even if nature is balanced on a knife-edge between chaos and order, I still do not understand what this has to do with the mice and the stimulant gas?”
“Because instinct was not Mother Nature’s only tool to provide us sanity. She had one more powerful trick up her sleeve.”
Comprehension dawned in his eyes. “Sleep…?”
“Why does every biological lifeform experience sleep pressure? Why do we have a failsafe in the form of microsleep to guarantee we will nod off even when we try our hardest not to? What are our brains doing for a third of our lives that is so important and requires so much juice that, at the end of each day, they essentially render us unconscious and paralyzed? What evolutionary advantage is worth the risk of the brain taking itself mostly offline for a good chunk of each day? I’ll tell you what, my good friend. Our brains are doing their damned best to keep the madness inside us at bay. It’s true. I’ve witnessed firsthand what happens during the total and prolonged absence of sleep and microsleep. Yes, admittedly only in mice thus far, but now…” He looked at the feces-smeared viewing window.
Guru looked too, and he gasped. “Chad and Shaz, they are not sleeping like you said?”
“No, Guru, they are not.”
“They have…peeked behind Mother Nature’s curtain?”
Dr. Wallis nodded. “And they need our help.”
◆◆◆
“Chad, Sharon, I’m coming in,” Dr. Roy Wallis said.
He didn’t expect an answer and didn’t get one.
To Guru: “We’re going to have to bust the door in.”
“What about the viewing window?” he said. “Would it not be easier to break that?”
“Easier, yes, but then the stimulant gas would contaminate the antechamber. Now, on the count of three, you and I are going to shove this door open. Ready?”
They shoved. Something sounding like metal on concrete squealed from the other side of the door.
“Keep pushing!” Dr. Wallis said.
Inch by inch the door cracked open until Wallis could see that the large seven-hundred-liter refrigerator lay on its side in front of it.
“A little more,” he grunted. And then: “Okay, that should do it.” He studied the narrow space they’d created between the door and the frame. It would be a tight fit. “I’ll go first.”
With his back flush with the door, Wallis placed his right knee on what was now the top of the toppled fridge and allowed himself to fall sideways. His upper body cleared the narrow space, and then it was simply a matter of dragging his legs through after him. He stood, dusted off his hands, and surveyed the room.
“Oh, shit,” he said.
◆◆◆
Dr. Roy Wallis approached the middle of the sleep laboratory, which smelled ten times worse than the filthiest restroom he had ever had the misfortune of visiting. Chad was crouched in a far corner, near the lounge, watching him with eyes that almost seemed to shine with an inner glow. But it was Sharon who Dr. Wallis was focused on. She lay on her bed, on her side, naked from the waist down. Across the center of her forehead either she or Chad had carved a straight incision from temple to temple, which had bled tremendously, painting much of her face red.
Her eyes, like Chad’s, seemed to shine catlike, though whereas his were guarded and watchful, hers were intense and manic, conjuring the image of a woman in the final few minutes of childbirth.
“What the fuuuuck?” Guru said from behind him.
“Sharon?” Dr. Wallis said. “Did you cut yourself? Or did Chad?”
Her lips curled into a smile.
“Where’s the knife?” he pressed.
“There it is, professor,” Guru said, pointing.
A steak knife, stainless steel blade and black plastic handle covered in blood, lay on the floor ten feet away from the bed.
“Go get it,” Wallis said. “Don’t startle Chad.”
Guru went to the knife slowly, his eyes never leaving Chad. When he reached the knife, he crouched—and hesitated. “Are you sure I should touch this, professor? It is evidence.”
“If you leave it there, Guru, either Chad or Sharon might use it again—to do something worse.”
Guru picked up the knife and stood. “What now?” he asked.
“Take it to the observation room and bring back the first-aid kit.”
Guru did as he was told, and Dr. Wallis returned his attention to Sharon. The incision across her forehead was deep but not excessively so. It most definitely required stitches, but this was not a service he could offer. Her hands, he noted, were smeared with dried excrement and blood, the latter leading him to believe she had been the one who did the cutting.
“Why’d you cut yourself, Sharon?” he asked her.
Her smile returned, the corners of her mouth twitching upward in a sinister rictus. Wallis did not like that smile one bit. He looked back to the door. Guru was squeezing through the crack to reenter the sleep laboratory. He scrambled over the fridge and came to the bed.
“Here you go, professor,” he said, handing Wallis the bright red first-aid kit. “What should I do now?”
“Get some warm soapy water from the sink and bring it over.”
Dr. Wallis unzipped the kit and set it on the bed. By the time he had snapped on a pair of blue Nitrile gloves, Guru had returned with a glass of soapy water and a roll of paper towel.
“This might sting a little, Sharon,” he said.
“Okay, doc,” she replied, her voice as dry as the rustle of October leaves, her manic blue-green eyes never leaving his.
Wallis wetted some paper towel and gently dabbed the long incision. Sharon didn’t flinch.
“Does it hurt?” he asked her.
“I like you touching me, doc.”
Wallis paused for only a moment before he resumed cleaning the incision, which he then misted with antiseptic spray and smeared with a liberal amount of antibiotic cream. He placed four small Band-Aids perpendicularly over the cut in the hopes of holding it together in the absence of sutures. He wrapped her head with the same compression bandage he’d used on his hand. He then used more paper towel and water to wipe the dried blood from her forehead, face, and neck.
“That’s about the best we can do for now,” he said, studying his handiwork. “How does the bandage feel? It’s not too tight, is it?”
“All good, doc,” she said. “But what about my tummy?”
She wore one of the nearly two dozen identical navy sweatshirts he’d purchased for her. He’d been so focused on her forehead he hadn’t realized the sweatshirt was saturated with blood.
“Can I take a look?” he asked her.
Sharon sat up in the bed and raised the oversized garment—it was clearly one he’d purchased for Chad—to just below her breasts.
A second gaping incision divided her taut stomach an inch above her belly button. Blood, much of it still wet, smeared her lower abdomen, pubis, and inner thighs.
Guru inhaled. Wallis swore.
“Guru,” he said tightly, “go get me some more water.”
When the Indian returned, Wallis used nearly the entire roll of paper towel to clean the incision and surrounding skin. The wound was still bleeding, but there was nothing he could do about that.
“Do you like touching me there, doc?” Sharon asked abruptly.
Wallis was wiping down her left inner thigh. “I can think of a myriad of other activities I would prefer to be performing right now, believe it or not.”
“I like it when you touch me there. You don’t have to use the gloves.”
“Guru, pass me the antiseptic spray, then go get her a fresh set of clothes.”
Dr. Wallis sterilized the incision, taped it closed with the largest Band-Aides available, and looped the compression bandage several times around her torso.
“Do you need help changing,” he asked her when Guru brought him the clothing, “or can you manage y
ourself?”
Sharon pulled the sweatshirt swiftly over her head so she sat on the bed stark naked.
“You’re going to need to stand up,” he told her, holding out his hand in assistance.
She took it and stood with little trouble despite her injuries. Guru passed him a pair of white underwear. He crouched before her. “Lift your left foot,” he said. She lifted it. “Right foot.” She lifted it. He pulled the underwear up an over her thighs. The band snapped snugly around her waist. He repeated the same procedure with the sweatpants. “Do you want to wear a bra?”
“No,” she said simply.
“Arms up.”
She raised them in the air, and he pulled the sleeves of the sweatshirt over each, then lowered the neck hole over her head, careful to avoid touching her forehead.
“You can sit back down,” he told her.
“Can we dance?” she asked him.
“We’re not dancing.”
“Please, mate? I wanna dance.”
Dr. Wallis packed up the first-aid kit, then requested Guru’s help to return the refrigerator to its upright position. On small wheels, it was easy enough to push back into its place in the kitchen. “Collect the rest of the knives from the cutlery drawer,” he told Guru, “and wait for me in the antechamber. I’ll be there in a minute.”
Wallis went to the viewing window, crinkling his nose in distaste at the smell and sight of it. He peeled free three stained pages from the two-way mirror and rubbed the surface clean with what remained of the paper towel.
He turned to find both Australians watching him with their strangely gleaming eyes. Chad had joined Sharon in smiling at him.
“I believe this small portal to be a fair compromise,” Wallis announced loudly. “You both have more privacy than before, yet we are still able to look in here every now and then to check up on you.”
Neither of them spoke.
“You are both extremely malnourished and need to eat. If you would like anything specific not provided for already, please let me know.”
They began to giggle—awful, high-pitched batty sounds as unnerving as fingernails drawn down a blackboard.
“At least drink water to stay hydrated,” he added. “It’s essential for your health.”
Now the giggles became full-throated, hyena-like, hysterical.
Dr. Wallis returned to the observation room.
◆◆◆
“What time is it, professor?” Guru asked. “Am I asleep? Because I feel as though I am trapped in a nightmare.”
And it’s only going to get worse, my friend, Dr. Wallis thought, but didn’t say.
They were in the observation room, Guru slumped in the chair, as if exhausted, Wallis sitting partially on the table, his arms folded across his chest.
“Why would Sharon do that to herself? No, you do not have to explain, professor. I know why. It is the madness.” His shoulders sank. “How can this be?”
“The proof is right in front of you, Guru. They’ve gone insane. Or they’re very, very close to the tipping point.”
“Should we not try to help them? Should we—”
“It’s too late for that. They’re beyond the point of help.”
“But we cannot just sit here and let them go insane—or go more insane.”
“That’s exactly what we have to do.”
“But professor! They are not lab animals. They are humans!”
“I’m well aware of that fact, Guru. But you have to think of the greater good here. Over the next couple of days the evidence we document will be invaluable. Think about it. We will have demonstrated that you, me, the entire human race, all animal life, is essentially mad.”
“Is this something we want to make known to the world?”
“Of course! It may seem like a pessimistic revelation at first glance, but it is in fact quite the contrary. We once thought the universe was ordered because it appeared to run on a set of rules that we termed the laws of physics. But quantum theory has shown us is that these laws, at their core, are actually random and unpredictable. Chaotic. However, far from diminishing our view of the universe, this knowledge has enlightened it tremendously. We now know matter can essentially be in an infinite number of places at any given time. We know it is possible there are many universes, or a multiverse. We know that when subatomic particles disappear they reappear somewhere else, which sounds preposterous but is a proven fact and one day might lead to the tantalizing prospect of time travel. And speaking of the future, in the coming century mastering quantum theory will enable us to master matter itself. We’ll create metamaterials with new properties not found in nature, and quantum computers that operate at millions of times the speeds of computers today. Invisibility, my man. Teleportation. Space elevators. Limitless energy. Advances in biotechnology and medicine we can’t even begin to comprehend.”
“What are you saying, professor?”
“I’m saying, Guru, that no scientific discovery has ever set us backward. Imagine the new fields of psychology our research will open up, the new fields of quantum theory applied to the mind. Jesus, our research may set in motion the steps to one day crack the code of consciousness—and with that, reality itself. Can you dig that, my man? Can you dig it?”
“Oh my, professor. This is almost too much for me to process.”
“What matters, Guru, what matters right in this moment, is that while it’s unfortunate what’s happening to Chad and Sharon, certainly, it’s for the greater good. Remember—no great progress is made without sacrifice. You told me you understood that?”
“I do, professor, I do.” His face dropped. “Oh my…”
“Penny could not grasp the big picture. She was too close-minded. Which is why I had to dismiss her from the experiment. But you’re not like her, buddy. I know that. I’ve always known that. You’re a scientist at heart. The search for knowledge and truth is in your genes. So you’re not going to make the same mistake she did, are you? You’re not going to walk away from what will arguably become one of the greatest intellectual triumphs in the history of human civilization, are you?”
Nearly a full minute of silent contemplation followed this grandiose statement, but then the tormented indecision in Guru’s expression hardened into a fierce resolve.
“No, professor,” he said finally. “I am not.”
Day 14
Sunday, June 10
Dr. Roy Wallis left Tolman Hall at 7:00 a.m. to purchase a pair of air mattresses, pillows, sleeping bags, and any other necessities he and Guru might need in the coming days. He was pleased with his decision to bring the young Indian into the know. Not only did Guru take the around-the-clock pressure off Wallis, but it was simply a great relief to finally confess to someone the true purpose of the Sleep Experiment, and with this, the theory he had been working on for much of the last decade.
On the walk to the Audi, Dr. Wallis bristled with life. Everything about the day seemed fresh and wonderful: the magenta and coral dawn sky; the warm rays of the waking sun; the scent of grass and, beneath this, nutmeg and cloves, which was probably the organic herbicide the campus employed to control the weeds in the block-pavement walkways.
You’re so, so close, buddy, he was thinking excitedly. Another day, perhaps two, to discover if your theory will be proven correct.
And if so… Well, the implications simply could not be understated. Overnight Roy Wallis would become a household name, spoken in the same sentences as Newton, Einstein, Tesla, Galileo, Aristotle.
It was all a little unreal right then. But he’d get his head around it.
He would thrive in the spotlight. He was born for it.
◆◆◆
Dr. Wallis’ voice echoed inside Guru’s mind:
We’re all chaos wrapped in order.
Guru shivered.
Did he believe this extraordinary claim? Really, truly believe it?
If anyone other than Dr. Wallis had told him this, the answer would have been an emphatic no. But
the professor was one of the world’s foremost experts on the science of sleep. He knew what he was talking about.
Moreover, Guru had witnessed the changes in Chad and Sharon himself. They were going mad before his eyes.
We’re all chaos wrapped in order.
Guru was not a spiritual man. When he pondered the vastness of the universe and the wonders of the natural world and the mysteries of consciousness, he did not search for a divine power to give meaning and purpose to it all. He accepted a material world that could be understood through the logical reasoning of science.
Consequently, even if he did believe Dr. Wallis’ extraordinary claim—and he thought perhaps he did—he did not necessarily share the professor’s description of the chaos as some sort of ‘demon.’ However, whatever it was, the chaos in question was clearly not benign.
It was dark, twisted, wicked.
Just look at what it had done to the Australians.
Guilt and shame filled Guru at the thought of the raving lunatics Chad and Sharon had become. When the experiment concluded, they would be carted off to a mental institution where they would spend the rest of their days in straightjackets. This image was all the more terrible when Guru contrasted it with the smiling, healthy, easy-going people they had been less than two weeks before. Sharon especially. She had been so friendly to him, so inquisitive, always smiling and asking him questions.
And look at her now…all cut up and mad as a hatter.
Nevertheless, nothing could be done about this. The damage to her mind had already been inflicted. There was no rewind button.
If Dr. Wallis and Guru walked away now, Chad and Sharon’s sacrifices would be for naught.
So the professor was right. There was only one course of action available to them.